


(guilt) Tripping

by drainbamage954 (cats_cradle6766)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, Hanahaki Allusions, M/M, One-Sided Love, Suicide, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-04 01:56:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5315924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cats_cradle6766/pseuds/drainbamage954
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The grief cycle operates in stages.  Center stage, understudies, opening night, dress rehearsals until the play is perfection, and the audience remains in blissful ignorance of the drama behind scenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(guilt) Tripping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inconspicuouslyblue (bluedreaming)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedreaming/gifts).



> This was initially going to be simple, but then I ended up getting very side tracked with time loops and cycling. I hope you like this, and thank you for the wonderful prompts! 
> 
> Some of the time related stuff is taken from research on Quantum Physics (please see _‘What the Bleep Do We Know’_ and theories on universal time structure). I’m sorry the kabedon isn’t explicitly prevalent but I hope you like the story ;u;

  
_"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it"._ \- (Act III, Scene II).  
Much Ado About Nothing ;  
William Shakespeare

**Act VII**  


 

The lights are too bright, casting everything in brilliant illuminated exposure.

The microphones are still on, battery packs hooked around waists, against backs, against hips, tape sticky against cheeks slick with sweat, amplifying the screams around the resonating halls.

The image on stage is frozen, cast in sharp relief to the audience, the crash and the fall, caught before the lights dim, breaths loud in his ears, all colors and images cast in blinding clarity as they present for hundreds of absent eyes to watch the tragedy on stage.

The blank eyes that had been so bright just moments before stare into forever, now as still as glass, fogged from too many days in the sun. Hollow.

The stage is alive, in movement and yelling and arms trying to pry the structure up and off, color flowing, soaking into fabric and staining skin. The stage is alive.

But he is not.

The stage is alive.

Baekhyun is not.

 

**Intermission**

 

In the grand scheme of things, time isn’t a fixed thing. Once, it had been, a method of control, of chronology, but no longer. It’s fluid, the water of the universe, bending and flowing as it needs to, frozen into refracting crystals, and able to reverse direction if the path is altered.

“Can you do it?”

Zitao is known among small circles, with people who talk to few who write down names and numbers and trickle down and into the crevices of word of mouth. Zitao is known to those who ask, who know where to look.

Those dark eyes look up from under lilac hair, speaking of worlds yet to be discovered. “I can.”

“I can pay you,” he says, feelings the weight in his chest, too heavy to sleep under, too soft to catch and too hard to let go. It’s always there, a shadow waiting to swallow Yixing whole. “I have money.”

“I don’t work with money,” Zitao says, his soft rasping voice cutting through the smoke clogged room. The silver and gold of his rings flashes in the dim light as he folds his hands on the table. “Do you understand the price you're asking to pay?”

“I’ll pay,” he says, sure.

“Checks and balances,” Zitao says, his eyes darkening. "In the end, all the loose strings are burned off."

“I understand,” Yixing says, the weight settling deeper, too heavy to ignore, too strong to let go and he holds on instead. Until he can bear the weight, he’ll find a way to lift it.

To fix it.

 

**ACT I**

 

It had been a normal afternoon. Another dress rehearsal for the performance scheduled to open in two weeks. Hours of stage construction and scripts being studied, of their director and choreographer screaming at them to get their stage cues right, to go again, again, _again_.

Take it from the top! Go back to the beginning! Run it again, again, _again_.

Repetition is the way to perfection, and understudies are emergency back up if you fail.

Don’t fail.

“Wake up. We have to run our scene.”

Yixing opens his eyes and looks up to the ceiling of backstage black painted pipes and air ducts, twenty feet above him. Head pillowed on soft thighs, his script lying on his chest, he lets his eyes slip to the side and looks up into a smiling familiar face that has haunted the dreams he’s clung to for weeks.

“Baekhyun.”

Those soft brown eyes dance, tapered fingers reaching forward to pinch the tip of his nose playfully. “That’s ‘Mercutio’ to you for the next hour, or however long we’re going to be running this,” Baekhyun corrects him, bouncing his legs to get Yixing to move. “Hurry up, Romeo, my legs are numb.”

Breath caught, Yixing doesn't move, caught in the moment of watching Baekhyun’s styled hair for his role fall out of place, into his eyes, brushing just above his brow as he turns in the contours of light. He lets out a soft sound, eyes lined dark with charcoal widening with curiosity as Yixing moves, swelling up to cover him. Keeping him still, stable under him, Baekhyun is caged in the protection of his arms as he splays on the ground covered in wood shavings and dust.

“Baekhyun,” drops like a prayer from his lips, choking at the back of his throat. The halo of dark hair around Baekhyun's head is a vision of complacency, vulnerable and innocent as Yixing looms over him, arms his solid pillars keeping them both safe.

Alive.

“We have to go,” Baekhyun says, letting his head tilt to the side, temple knocking against Yixing’s wrist. “Dongwan doesn’t like waiting for his actors, he’ll get all ruffled up and ready to tar and feather us.”

“Let him,” Yixing says, the weight he hadn’t realized was gone briefly tugging at him. “But-.”

The confusion that spreads over Baekhyun’s face is crimson as Yixing pulls away swiftly, memories of color, screams, and pain flashing through his mind and pounding his heart in panic. The cry of confusion behind him fades in his ears, only the shocked face of Chanyeol as he pulls him back from the stage, the parody set up on their own auditorium, away from recurring reality.

The chaos as people come to attention, voices raised over microphones, shouting and scolding, pandemonium as faces all swim into focus before the sudden scream and the crash pierces through them all. Only silence follows before screams of accusations start up from the stage crew.

At the side of the stage, Baekhyun stands, face pale and eyes fixed on rubble of timber and metal collapsed set design. “I was supposed to be there.”

With shaking breaths, Yixing pulls him into his arms and buries his nose into the soft warm skin of Baekhyun’s neck, shaking with unshed tears of relief. “I know.”

The stage is alive.

And so is Baekhyun.

 

**ACT II**

 

It's a beautiful morning. The sun is high, the birds outside singing with sweet melodies, and Yixing smiles, script rolled up in his back pocket as he walks to school. It's a beautiful morning, bursting with life and love and happiness.

It's a beautiful morning.

By the front of the school, there is a crowd. Curious steps and the flashes of lights have his heart pounding, confusion, concern, doubt. Guilt.

It had been an accident, they said. He hadn’t seen him, he said. There is nothing that can be done, they say. They don’t know what to do, it’s time to look away, there’s nothing that can be done, there’s nothing they can do, it was an accident, slowly spinning wheels of useless sympathy to a stop in the eyes that look up from the ground with the life turned to fogged glass in filtered sunlight.

 _"In the end, all the loose strings are burned off,”_ lingers in the smoke of incense and the glint of gold and silver.

 

**Rehearsal**

 

_Take it from the top._

 

**Intermission**

 

“I need to go back,” chokes from drying lungs, eyes scratching from crying rivers of time.

“I warned you,” sighs heavily before the smoke chokes in the back of his throat.

 

**ACT II**

 

It's a beautiful morning. The sun is high, the birds outside singing with sweet melodies. It's a beautiful morning, bursting with life and love and happiness.

It's a beautiful morning, and Yixing is running. Feet pounding as hard as they can, blistering against tarmac as the sunlight burns too hot against his skin. Faster before the repeat, before the reprise, before the moment is lost in a flash, captured in memory that’s too wrong to hold onto.

The spinning wheels of a bicycle catch on the curb, a cell phone rings, the glare of the sun hits through a windshield just as a dog barks, and Yixing’s lungs burn as he runs, catching up. A scream of pain, from both himself and his heart as he collides into a time cycle and crashes to the sidewalk, arms stable pillars sheltering from the chaos of time. Baekhyun is yelling, blood soaking through his jeans from a shattered shin bone, but he’s safe.

Baekhyun is captured under him, scratches and blood smeared over his face and helmet cracked, eyes wide and panicked as he shoves him, tries to push him off and Yixing holds his life together. Safe.

Alive.

_Safe._

“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?”

There is a screech of rubber against tar, another scream in a roaring climax, and Yixing turns with ears ringing in vacant dead sound.

Under the shuddering wheels lies a broken flower, innocent and fragile just like the light in his arms, silent instead of screaming protests. As smoke plumes from under the hood of a car, the flower lies motionless, frozen eyes fixed in silent accusation, fogged glass piercing through the windows of his soul as crimson poppies begin to flow over baking asphalt. Those eyes look on, never closing.

Seeing him for who he is.

 

**Overture**

 

_“Did you know that for every action, there are a million other possibilities? Just one derivation creates another reality, another existence completely it’s own. Just one decision, one choice, and a whole other universe begins. Tiny Big Bangs, bubbles in the bath tub of our multiverse.”_

 

**ACT III**

 

Yixing looks up at the ceiling of the backstage area, ears filled with sawdust as Junmyeon looks down at him, the words _’I know’_ subliminal as he mouths sympathy and condolences.

”We all loved him." 

_Not like I did. Like I do._

It had been trauma, survivor’s guilt after the death of that poor girl crossing the street to school, seconds after Baekhyun nearly swerved into traffic. Infection. Guilt. They couldn’t do anything. Guilt. It was fast and quick. _Guilt._ He didn’t feel any pain.

Taehyung will be 'Mercutio' for opening night. A great honor for an underclassman understudy.

Center stage, Yixing looks up and feels crimson poppies choke at the back of his throat.

 

**Intermission**

 

“How many times?” curls up from candles and powder packed into cakes, smoldering in small porcelain dishes.

“As many times as I have to.”

 

**ACT IV**

 

“Wake up. We have to run our scene.”

Yixing opens his eyes and looks up to the ceiling of backstage black painted pipes and air ducts, twenty feet above him. Head pillowed on soft thighs, his script lying on his chest, he lets his eyes slip to the side and looks up into a smiling familiar face that has dominated the dreams he’s clung to for weeks, suspended between real and almost.

“Baekhyun.”

Those soft brown eyes dance, tapered fingers reaching forward to pinch the tip of his nose playfully. “That’s 'Mercutio' to you for the next hour, or however long we’re going to be running this,” Baekhyun corrects him, bouncing his legs to get Yixing to move. “Hurry up, Romeo, my legs are numb.”

"Under love's heavy burden do I sink.”

Stillness, a delay as honestly drapes silence to hang in soft falling hair into wide eyes before a laugh. “Of course you do.”

“I used to wonder if it would be better to have loved and lost, or never loved.”

“Yixing-“

“I can't lose you,” slow and calm against the adrenalin blooming vermillion paper petals through him. “Just- Understand that.”

“What are-“

There is no time, and the startled yelp followed by a protesting shout as hands push Baekhyun back, back, _back_ until he’s hidden from fate's watchful eyes.

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun rasps. Trapped in the small space between paint and costumes and props, Yixing arms strong pillars to shepherd him. Protecting. _No escape._

It’s better this way.

“I'm doing this for you.”

The hopeless claim of lips hurts, but Yixing takes it anyway, a howl of rebuttal from love’s red smeared lips falling on deaf ears as he turns the key in the lock and faces the stage.

The crash echoes as he runs back to the set, the rising wail of youth lost as the lights bring still vibrant life on a stage of death.

“He was so young,” whispers Junmyeon, staring at the crumpled form of the understudy trapped under timber and metal, a lifeless rag doll, hair falling into his face in phantom resemblances to Baekhyun. Red correction ink over young pure prospects and potential, forever limiting.

“It’s a tragedy.” Yixing coughs up scarlet blooms as the images in his head slip back into place.

 

**ACT V**

 

“It should have been me.”

The black clothing doesn’t suit the man beside him, staring at the memorial of flowers spread beneath the case of student awards, candles and photos memorializing a young boy taken early in life's tragedy, his smile blooming a beautiful bouquet behind the glass.

“It was an accident.”

“It should have been me,” repeats in a voice turned hollow after being released back into time. “It was supposed to be me. He wasn’t even supposed to be on stage. He was an understudy, it was-“

“It’s not your fault,” he says, heart aching as he tries to take a hand so full of warmth and finds brittle dried leaves, limp and empty. “There was nothing you could have done.”

There are no tears left, only the weight that dulls vibrant eyes to monochrome shades.

“No amount of guilt can change the past. You can only look at the future.”

Fog rolls in, hazing once bright eyes to reflect just as lifeless as those staring from a picture capturing only the memory of a boy's beating heart. “What about Taehyung’s future?”

 

**ACT VI**

 

They say grief can do many things. It blooms apathy, deludes the mind, and it can waste away as time gnaws on bones long ago made brittle with misery.

It builds guilt, blaming, and anger. It becomes the dark pit to get lost in, hope only a small light high above, impossible to climb back to with bleeding hands and forgotten hearts.

They say grief drives people to desperation, and he should have known from his own despair, to never look away.

They said it was grief that took him, that shut the light from Baekhyun’s eyes.

Yixing knows better.

It wasn't grief that killed Baekhyun, it was he.

 

 

**Intermission**

 

“I need to go back.”

“How many more times until you’re finished?”

The gold and silver glint in the candles as the smoke casts a haze thick in the air, fogging memories and realities, distorting the mind.

“This is the last time.”

 

**ACT VII**

 

“Wake up. We have to run our scene.”

Yixing opens his eyes and looks up to the ceiling of backstage black painted pipes and air ducts, twenty feet above him. Head pillowed on soft thighs, his script lying on his chest, he lets his eyes slip to the side and looks up into a smiling familiar face that has haunted him beyond time.

“Baekhyun.”

Those soft brown eyes dance, tapered fingers reaching forward to pinch the tip of his nose playfully. “That’s 'Mercutio' to you for the next hour, or however long we’re going to be running this,” Baekhyun corrects him, bouncing his legs to get Yixing to move. “Hurry up, Romeo, my legs are numb.”

Rolling off of him, Yixing takes a moment to let his head clear, his resolution solidifying as he takes in the other young man, looking at him with a quirk of amusement to his mouth. “We should get moving,” Yixing says, standing up and offering a hand to Baekhyun. “Dongwan will get pissed if we’re late.”

“Then let’s not keep him waiting.”

The lights are too bright, casting everything in brilliant illuminated exposure.

The microphones are still on, battery packs hooked around waists, against backs, against hips, tape sticky against cheeks slick with sweat, amplifying the shouts around the resonating halls.

The fantastic stage, half completed on the high school auditorium stage stands, expectant, feigning innocence. Yixing watches it, patient and calm, as he follows along with lines long since bled into his own flesh and bone. There is a sequence, so perfectly executed, so finitely directed it dances in the banter of exquisite words held with ageless time and beauty. It’s a play within a play within a life, all of them actors, and he steps where fate orchestrates, cueing the beginning crack from above as Baekhyun strides forward on the half finished stage and the show continues.

The stage is alive, sudden screams and shouts of terror as the banister above, recently installed and still on fickle probation, buckles under the burden of destiny and falls.

The stage is color, is sound, is frozen in the brief moment that Baekhyun’s breath leaves him in a gasp and he falls.

The stage is screams, cries and panic, the lights beating down in heated exposure of the scene presented for the audience waiting to fill the empty seats.

Yet all Yixing sees as smoke bleeds into his vision and the oppressive weight of his choices crushes against his back and buckles his heart between beats, is the life in Baekhyun’s eyes as he stares up at him.

The stage is alive in movement and yells and arms trying to pry the structure up and off, color flowing, soaking into fabric and staining skin.

The stage is alive.

Arms shaking pillars of fading virtue weaken as hands pull and drag to safety and Baekhyun looks up at him with eyes of clear shining glass, brimming with the pain he couldn't bear. The slam of their bodies to the ground, Yixing’s arms the pillars of strength to shelter Baekhyun as the world came crashing down on their tragedy, fades into silence as Yixing smiles. Crimson poppies flutter past his lips to drip dark against Baekhyun's pale skin, splashing red words from his heart he could never choke out.

The stage is alive.

And so is Baekhyun.

The stage is alive.

Yixing is not.

 

**Encore**

 

“It should have been me.”

Standing beside the curtains, waiting for the lights to rise, the luster and vibrancy that made 'Mercutio' the dynamic man has faded backstage.

“I was standing right there, right where it fell, and he pushed me out of the way.”

“He saved your life,” reminds the understudy, the young man who speaks with just the same softness, compassion, and gentility that Yixing had. It makes Baekhyun’s heart ache even as it soothes. A memory of a memory, a life living on within him.

“Still…”

“He wanted you to live,” reassures gently, a hand rested on his shoulder. “Not dwell on his loss.”

Closing his eyes and taking in a deep breath, the orchestra begins the overture to opening night when everything could go wrong. A bitter smile threatens but Baekhyun holds it at bay, the thought of _’it already did’_ pushed away.

“Do you think he knew?”

“Knew what?”

“That I could have loved him? If I had the chance to try. . .”

Warm eyes look back at him before Taehyung wraps him in long lanky arms that had seemed so impossible for an idyllic 'Romeo' but which somehow fit the puerile lover. “I've heard the dead keep the best secrets.”

The curtain lifts on a dark stage waiting for its time.

The lights rise, chasing away the shadows of dark and twisted memories.

The stage is alive, a pulse of energy as actors swing in and out of the wings, blossoming into their element and capturing the audience’s hearts with words spun into gold and silver, casting a fog of unreality upon captivated prey.

The stage is alive, pulsing in flowered language from painted lips.

The show goes on.

 

  
_"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts"_ \- (Act II, Scene VII).  
As You Like It;  
William Shakespeare.

**Author's Note:**

> Yixing's line _"Under love's heavy burden do I sink”_ is a line from _Romeo and Juliet_ , spoken by Romeo.


End file.
